17 September 2015

Am I the Only One Who Thought ... at the GOP debate

Am I the only one who ....Watching the candidates parade out in their identical business suits... thought, "You can't help but admire their commitment to fiscal austerity to go so far as to buy their clothing in bulk."Am I the only one who ....Listening to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz say that they'd put Rosa Parks on the 10 dollar bill... thought, "Hmm. This year's conservatives are essentially last century's liberals. It's like those poorer countries where you see technology that you'd forgotten about, like old style Coke bottles in Mexico. If Sanders is an iPhone, even Rubio is a flip phone. (Well, okay, I guess that would mean Huckabee is still a can on a string. And Jindal is rotary dial. And Trump just looks like a phone until you try to speak back and then you realize that it's not a phone at all. He can't hear you. But I digress.)

Am I the only one who ...

When Jeb said, "As it relates to my brother, there's one thing I know for sure. He kept us safe."

... thought, "Well, yeah, except for that whole 9-11 thing."

Am I the only one who ...

When Rick Santorum talked about the minimum wage, saying, ""Republicans are losing elections because we aren’t taking about [workers], all we want to talk about is what happened to business, there are people that work in those businesses."

... thought, "Well doesn't that show a great mix of self-reflection and compassion?"

Am I the only one who ...

When Carly Fiorina said, "We doubled the size of the company [HP]..."

... thought, "Well yeah, by acquiring Compaq," and then got lost in a tangent that went something like this? Hmm. I wonder what country we'd be able to acquire under her presidency? Canada? Maybe something smaller and more profitable, like Luxembourg? And would she do it with military force or with debt financing? This could be as big as the Louisiana Purchase. She is a bold leader."

Am I the only one who ...

Watching the candidates get so excited about putting troops on the ground in Iran and Syria and Iraq (again)

... thought, "Did they actually pay any attention to the Iraq War? The one that killed thousands of American and allied soldiers and hundreds of thousands of the Iraqis we were pretending to liberate? The war that created 4 million refugees who - along with displaced Syrians - are streaming across Europe now? That war? Do they actually think that war turned out well or do they just think that the way to make it better is to go back into Iraq and add Syria and Iran to the list of countries to invade and rebuild? Is denial really that integral to the Republican identity now?"

Am I the only one who ...

Every time Lindsey Graham spoke about the war on radical Islam

.. thought, "Has any closeted gay ever gone to greater extremes to appear masculine than to demand an invasion of every middle eastern country? Does no one here realize how mad this is, as if he's trying to create an anti-Caliphate? He doesn't need a podium. He needs a psychiatrist's couch."

Am I the only one who ...

When listening to Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee express their anger with the Supreme Court and Congress

... thought, "He's not running for president. He doesn't want a balance of powers. He is running for king."

Am I the only one who ....

Every time Scott Walker looked into the camera with that oddly vacant expression

... thought, "We need a poster of him with this expression that simply says: "I couldn't make it through four years of college but, with your help, I'd very much like a chance to make it through four years in the Oval Office. This time, I think I can make it work."

Am I the only one who ...

When Rand Paul said, "Iran is now stronger because Hussein is gone. Hussein was the great bulwark and counterbalance to the Iranians. So when we complain about the Iranians, you need to remember that the Iraq War made it worse.Originally, Governor Bush was asked, was the Iraq War a mistake, and he said, 'No. We'd do it again.'We have to learn sometimes the interventions backfire. The Iraq War backfired and did not help us. We're still paying the repercussions of a bad decision."

... thought, This is why some people love Rand Paul. Here is a perfect example of reason and honesty about the limits of our ability to change any and every political problem around the globe.

Am I the only one who ...

Each time Republican candidates bragged about how they would face down Putin - arguably the world's most intimidating leader, a centa-billionaire despot with nuclear weapons -

... thought it odd that they would demonstrate their courage by pleasantly demurring from the moderator's invitation to actually elaborate on some accusation they'd made of a fellow candidate standing next to them, saying, "Well, you know, that's not what I really said ..."

Am I the only one ...

Who every time a candidate would rant about how terrible the economy is

... thought, If this is bad, I wonder what you would call it during the time you guys had the White House and both houses of Congress, when Dubya walked away from a crashing market and job losses of 796,000 in his final month in office. What adjective properly describes that? And what conceivable theory do you have for this catastrophe? Would that - too - simply be something that needs to be remedied with tax cuts?

Am I the only one ...

Who wondered when the Republican Party would look at the progression from Lincoln to Eisenhower to Reagan to Dubya to Trump and decide it might be time to change direction?